Mark McLaughlin looks at property disposals for inheritance tax purposes and implications of selling property at an undervalue.
Most people are aware of the general principle for inheritance tax (IHT) purposes that if an individual gifts an asset (e.g., an investment property) to another individual, the gift escapes IHT if the transferor survives at least seven years thereafter (there is an exception if there is a ‘reservation of benefit’ in the gift, but those anti-avoidance rules are not considered here).
As the name suggests, a ‘gift’ does not normally involve money changing hands. However, sometimes disposals are effectively partial gifts, in the
